Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens: A Life of Music and Meaning
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Full Name and Common Aliases
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Sufjan Stevens' full name is Sufjan Stevens, though he is often referred to as just Sufjan. His birth name is not a stage name or an alias; it has been with him since his early days in Michigan.
Birth and Death Dates
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Born: July 1, 1975
Status: Alive
Nationality and Profession(s)
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Sufjan Stevens is American by nationality. His career spans music, singing, songwriting, record production, multi-instrumentalist, and music video director.
Early Life and Background
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Born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family of artists, Sufjan grew up with exposure to various art forms. He began making music at the age of six on the piano and was heavily influenced by his parents' eclectic collection of music from The Velvet Underground to Bob Dylan. His early work involved playing with a band called Nowdogs in Michigan's Ann Arbor.
Major Accomplishments
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Sufjan Stevens has released numerous critically acclaimed albums, including:
Illinois (2005), a sprawling epic on the history and culture of Illinois.
Carrie & Lowell (2015), an introspective work about grief, love, and identity after losing his mother.
Notable Works or Actions
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Sufjan Stevens has been recognized for:
Five Grammy nominations, including Record of the Year in 2006 for "Chicago".
A Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song for "Mystery of Love" from the film Call Me By Your Name.
Multiple Polaris Music Prize wins, showcasing his innovative and emotional approach to songwriting.Impact and Legacy
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Sufjan Stevens has left an indelible mark on contemporary music. His poignant and introspective lyrics, paired with his eclectic blend of folk, rock, electronic elements, have captivated audiences worldwide. His artistic vision is characterized by:
Exploration of themes such as love, loss, identity, and faith.
* Pushing the boundaries of genre through experimentation with various sounds.
Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
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Sufjan Stevens' thoughtful approach to music has resonated deeply with his fans. His willingness to explore complex emotions through song has earned him a place among the most respected singer-songwriters of our time.
Quotes by Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens's insights on:
I'm a very self-conscious person; I think we all are, but I'm especially not very comfortable in my body. I always feel really weird and awkward on the street or on the stage. It has nothing to do with circumstances; it's just an ongoing psychological state, like white noise.
There’s such a magnitude of record taking. It’s so exhaustive. Bandwidth and hard drive space are able to accommodate limitless capacities to take a record of anything and everything.
I think musicians should stay off television generally. I get asked all the time. Those shows are just promoting insipid comedies. Who watches those shows? And whoever does I don’t think my music would speak to those people. I don’t even want those people to hear what I’m doing.
The goal is to never stay the same. I always want to be changing and evolving. That’s the whole point of life and the whole point of making art is to be constantly moving.
I’m always hearing music in terms of what I can take out of it, and I think I’ve always listened like that. I have a hard time just listening for pleasure. I’m much less about instinct, and more of a utilitarian listener.
The round-up is an aggressive tradition. I’m trying to objectively be a steward of the tradition and what it means in its choreography.
The music is the imperative. It has the upper hand. I think all music, even though it’s an abstraction, does motivate a particular meaning. Then it’s the job of the musician to honor that meaning and to somehow implement lyrical material that can accommodate that emotional environment.
It’s traumatic to meditate on the availability of information through the Internet, or the way we perceive the world as a result. People don’t experience things totally or viscerally anymore. It’s all through representation, be it a record on YouTube or a post on a blog.
A musician’s attempt to summarize his or her work leads to all this prescriptive chatter, or what I call the ‘Modifier’s Madness.’ A lot of adjectives working overtime.
It’s a mystical quality of music, that music isn’t really concrete, and it’s communicating abstractions about imaginary worlds. At least, my music’s like that. It’s not real. It’s unreal, it’s all fabrication. To write a song about Obama would suddenly break the spell.